My Review of Titans 4x09: "Dude, Where's My Gar?"

 

Written by Geoff Johns And Ryan Potter

Directed by Eric Dean Seaton

Gar: "I need to get to my family."

Stargirl: "I know how important family is."

Gar: "I get the sense that you do."

After two good but diverting episodes set in Caul's Folly, it was time to catch up with what was going on with Gar Logan and it seems that he had his own shit to deal with while his friends were up to their necks in Sebastian's ascension.

The first half of the season had been hinting about Gar's connection to the Red and here he learned that Freedom Beast (Nyambi Nyambi) had been looking for him for a long time. Gar's destined to be the Avatar of the Red, whether he likes it or not and Freedom Beast felt that Gar could only do this heavy task alone.

In a series of trips to the past we saw a younger and scared Gar coming into his connection to the Red and being susceptible to the pain and suffering of animals around him. This included one specific gorilla infected with anthrax being experimented on by Dr Myers and presenting Gar with a moral dilemma as freeing the gorilla would mean infecting the public.

However Freedom Beast found a way to deal with that particular dilemma while also pointing out to Gar that Niles Caulder was responsible for the death of his parents. After everything we saw with Niles on Doom Patrol, this particular reveal didn't exactly shock me. Speaking of the Doom Patrol, I've been missing them and this episode ended somewhere familiar.

With Gar being able to tap into the Red, this episode gave us a surprisingly fun little Multiverse adventure. Not only did Gar get to see himself in animation form but we also briefly saw the likes of The Flash (Grant Gustin), Shazam (Zachary Levi), Swamp Thing and Grant Morrison in a very fun cameo that should make any comic book fan smile.

On top of that, there was a lovely but brief interaction between Gar and Stargirl (Brec Bassinger) before the episode ended with Gar at the Doom Patrol manor and Cyborg (Joivan Wade) attending to him. It looks like Gar's reunion with the Titans will have to wait until next week and fingers crossed, we get some more Multiverse hijinks before then. 

- There was also some voiceovers of Kaley Cuoco's Harley Quinn and Cesar Romero's Joker from Batman 66. 

- The episode had a mid credit scene with Cyborg smiling and eating in front of the camera. Jinx hinted at a possible return for the finale and Rachel was the only other regular to physically appear in this episode.

- Nice tribute to Grant Morrison at the end, describing them as the true Master of the Multiverse.

- From where the events of the mid season finale left off from Gar's perspective.

Dude, Where My Gar? gave Ryan Potter the much needed and focus he deserved and he absolutely delivered here. Gar was at his best here, the flashbacks were great, the Multiverse nods were nicely done and I cannot wait to see what the next episode will bring.

Rating: 9 out of 10

DCEU Blog - DC's Future, The Penguin Casting, Stargirl Cancelled And More

Another busy month for DC fans and following the appointment of James Gunn and Peter Safran as heads of DC Studios, things are certainly moving along.

James Gunn and Peter Safran have made it crystal clear that only they and David Zaslav know what the full plan for DC will be.

However Gunn has stated we'll start to learn stuff about this upcoming plan over the next few months while Zaslav has stated there won't be four Batmen in the DC Universe. Take what you will from that.

Joker: Folie A Deux has officially gone into production and hopefully we'll get a look of Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga fairly soon.

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods will apparently be two hours and ten minutes long. The cast will be writing a tie in comic book, due for release early next year to coincide with the movie.

Cristin Milioti has been cast as Sofia Falcone for The Penguin HBO Max series and will be Oswald's main antagonist as she gets out of Arkham after serving a decade long sentence. Filming begins in January for the series.

Other characters who'll factor into the series will be Alberto Falcone, Mike Stone, Francis Cobblepot and Victor Aguilar. The latter is an original character for the series.

Warner Brothers Television Studios are close to striking an animation deal with Amazon for DC branded content.

Quick reminder the first half of the fourth season of Doom Patrol will stream on HBO Max from December 8th.

Stargirl has officially been cancelled after three seasons. 

DC will be factoring into this week's CCXP event after all with booths for Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, The Flash and Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom. 

Batman: The Animated Series star Kevin Conroy passed away earlier in the month at the age of 66. 

DC Comics will have another major comic event in 2023 titled Dawn Of The DCU, spanning multiple titles and serving as another jumping on point for readers.

The Sandman was renewed by Netflix for a second season earlier in  the month.

That's it for the month. Let's see what the last month of 2022 brings for the brand.

DCFanDome - Day 2 Highlights

Three weeks, DCFanDome basically dominated the internet and crashed a few times, site wise.  The latter happened yet again and while the hype on the second day wasn't quite the same as the first, we still got some interesting tidbits, concerning the TV shows and even the movies.

Superman & Lois: With filming due to start, we got a lovely panel with stars Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch and artist Jim Lee. Seeing them drawing the Superman symbol was lovely but in terms of spoilers, there wasn't too much revealed. Right now, there's a rumour of 15 episodes for the first season, we'll be getting a new suit for Superman, we know that the main villain will be The Stranger as played by Wole Parks and a potential love triangle with the Kent sons and Lana Lang's (Emmanuelle Chriqui) daughter. Other characters in the show will be General Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh), Martha Kent, Perry White, Morgan Edge and Ron Troupe. Also expect a crossover with Batwoman as well in the series.

Legends Of Tomorrow: Season 6 is due to film soon and we've finally got a casting information. Chicago PD alumni, Lisseth Chavez will join as a new regular, called Esperenza 'Spooner' Cruz to help the team hunt down extraterrestrials displaced in history. The show's take on aliens will be different to Supergirl while the second episode will focus on the Tarazi siblings, Sara won't be gone for long. Meanwhile Constantine and Astra will be living together with the latter also being a regular along with Behrad.

Supergirl: Not much was revealed here, though we did get to see both David Harewood (J'onn) and Nicole Maines (Nia) talking about representation. It does seem that filming will start sometime this month, even though it'll air later in 2021 compared to the other DC shows on the CW. I would also expect a reduced episode count.

Batwoman: I was hoping we'd get to see Javicia Leslie's look for Ryan Wilder's Batwoman but alas we did not. Now, the show has actually begun filming and joining Leslie for the show's second season will be Shivani Ghai, who will be playing the role of Safiyah Sohail who has a past connection to Alice (Rachel Skarsten). Another villain added to this season will be The Whisper, though the role has not been cast yet. I'm betting we'll get a glimpse of Ryan's Batwoman suit towards the end of the year. Other than that, I'm intrigued to see how this second season will play out.

The Flash: Now technically this show has finished as episodes intended for the sixth season are now part of the start for the upcoming seventh season. A trailer released showed the gang coming together to try and defeat Eva McCulloch's Mirror Master as Iris attempts to escape from her own prison. Showrunner Eric Wallace also confirmed that Barry will get his gold boots this upcoming season while Godspeed will also play a much bigger role than before. Trailer for the seventh season can be seen here .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e43b-f_Vg9I

Stargirl: I'm still halfway through the first season but this panel with the main cast and creator Geoff Johns was an interesting watch. It seems that the second season will feature more of Solomon Grundy along with the Shade as a main villain.

Black Lightning: Robert Townsend spoke to the main cast on the upcoming fourth season, due to begin filming as well this month in Atlanta and it was a nice enough panel but nothing revealing as such. Various cast members talked about things they'd like for their characters like Gambi getting a girlfriend or Tobias doing good through politics but in terms of spoilers, there was nothing to be revealed here.

Titans: Filming is due to start with the third season and as you can see from the pic above, Donna Troy (Conor Leslie) will be back from the dead. Of course, it won't be just Donna's return to look forward to as we've got both Blackfire (Damaris Lewis) and Red Hood (Curran Walters) as main villains, a heavy focus into Gotham, the arrival of Barbara Gordon, Roy Harper and a character named Danny (largely suspected to be Tim Drake from the character description) as well as the Scarecrow and Lex Luthor, casting for both to be confirmed. The upcoming season will also move to HBO Max.

Doom Patrol: Not too much revealed here, except that the show has officially been renewed for a third season and will air exclusively on HBO Max in 2021. The finale originally intended for the second season will now be the third season premiere, but we already knew that.

Pennyworth: With Epix set to air the second season of this other Batman prequel series later in the year, we did get the interesting news that Martha Kane (Emma Paetz) will be pregnant while Alfred (Jack Bannon) is desperate to get out of London. New additions to the season include James Purefoy, Edward Hogg and Jessye Romeo.

Lucifer: The sixth and final season of this show will comprise of 10 episodes, due to begin filming later this month. A clip was released of the cast singing Another One Bites The Dust while Netflix will release the second half of the fifth season later in the year. Clip to the upcoming musical episode can be seen here .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeUyF8xkOCc

Elsewhere HBO Max have yet to confirm if they will pick up a third season of Harley Quinn though I suspect they will while the fourth season of Young Justice will be titled, Phantoms. On a disappointing note there was no new information on any of the upcoming HBO Max DC shows, so looks like we'll be waiting a bit longer on that front. Meanwhile the official title for a certain upcoming four part HBO Max miniseries will be Justice League: Director's Cut.

As for the movie side of things, well the first day mainly focused on that but there was some new bits to emerge over the last few days nonetheless.

• Wonder Woman 1984 is moving yet again, this time it seems to give Tenet some more breathing space at the cinemas. It's new (and hopefully final) release day is December 25th 2020.
• The Batman had start filming, then had to stop when Robert Pattinson himself got COVID. Filming is rumoured to resume later this week as Pattinson is on the mend. Meanwhile we got a nice new poster and the trailer has amassed over 22 million views on YouTube since it's release.
• The Flash movie will "restart everything and forget nothing" according to producer Barbara Muschietti. More casting has yet to be revealed but expect many DC characters in it. 
• Black Adam and Shazam! Fury Of The Gods are due to begin filming in early 2021.

Well, that covers just about everything for DCFanDome. It's been an interesting two days and technical issues to one side, overall, I would say this has been a success. What have been your highlights over the two days and do you think this will be a yearly thing for DC?

All Kinds Of New And Exciting Adventures

It's been a while since my last TV Jumble blog and with autumn now with us, here's a look at some shows I've been catching up with in the last while.

911: I'm near the end of the third season of this show with only the two part finale left to watch and again, things have been interesting to watch. The last few episodes dealt with a hostage situation, delved into Eddie's early days of fatherhood while at the same time continuing with the theme of disconnect that Buck seems to have along with Hen potentially making a career change next season. Two episode left to go, I am looking forward to a certain character coming back as well.

I Hate Suzie: It's been a while since we've had Billie Piper on our screens and now's she back in the eight episode miniseries co-created by herself and Lucy Prebble. It's an interesting take on an actress in her thirties, struggling to deal with compromising pics of her being leaked, appealing to her fanbase, losing a Disney Princess gig and of course, trying to get her marriage back on track. Three episodes in so far and Piper gives a fantastic performance, the show is genuinely funny and uncomfortable and there's a great support with Leila Farzad's Naomi. Easily one of SkyAtlantic's best homegrown offerings.

Lovecraft Country: It seems that in the last while HBO has had it's bigger successes with delving into the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genre and three episodes in with this innovative, 1950s based show, they've struck more gold. That's especially true with a career defining performance from Jurnee Smollett as Letitia Lewis while Jonathan Majors has made for a charismatic protagonist in Atticus Freeman. Both actors bring their A game and have natural chemistry while the racial themes are handled perfectly along with the monsters of the week and strange goings on per episode. 

Stargirl: It's taken me a bit longer to get to this show than I would've liked but six episodes in, I'm both impressed and hoping that it's move to the CW for it's next season won't see a change in tone for the series. I like the small town setting, Brec Bassinger is fantastic in the title role as is Luke Wilson as STRIPE. The nice build towards a new generation of JSA along with the ISA coming out of the woodwork and a fantastic performance from Neil Jackson as Icicle. This might be DC Universe's last live action but it's as impressive as the other they've had. 

The Politician: And I've completed the second season. I really don't know how I truly feel about this show to be honest. I enjoy it but I have to admit, there's no-one really to root for here. The final three episodes did delve into the voters (this time between a lesbian mother and her daughter) while also cementing Payton's victory and his future which seems to be tied into Dede's growing ambitions. It's probably a good thing that the next season, which will likely be a while off will be it's last. 

The Umbrella Academy: When I heard rumours that the finale was for this season was going to be a polarising game change, I was a bit nervous but having watched the finale, all it's done has made me want the next season all the more. The first season was enjoyable but this second season was so much better and far more layered. A better examination of the main seven characters, fantastic new characters like Lila, Sissy, Ray and the Swedish assassins, the Handler being delightfully menacing and camp to the hilt, the excellent music choices, fight sequences. This season has been an absolute joy to watch. 

• UK/Irish viewers will be able to see 911 spin-off, 911: Lone Star on SkyLiving later this month.
• American Horror Story's tenth season will start filming next month and will air in 2021.
• Shameless will begin production on it's eleventh and final season this month.
• Anna Faris has quit Mom ahead of it's eighth season.
• Star Trek: Discovery have cast Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander as the show's first non binary and trans characters.
• Sony plan to do a live action TV series, focusing on the Marvel hero, Silk. 
• Sarah Paulson has revealed there is a plan to take upcoming Netflix series Ratched to four seasons.
• The X Files is getting an animated comedy spin-off. No, I have no idea why either.
• Viewers can see Buffy spin-off Angel again on E4 after the parent show finishes up it's current late night run.
• Alan Ritchson will star in the upcoming Jack Reacher show for Amazon.

My Review of DC TV's Crossover: "Crisis On Infinite Earths: Hours 4 & 5" (Arrow/Legends Of Tomorrow)

Last month, we had the first three episodes of the Arrow universe's most ambitious crossover event with Crisis On Infinite Earths. There were a lot of surprise moments in those three episodes and the game certainly changed for a lot of our main heroes. Could these last two episodes do better? You bet they could.

Written by Marv Wolfman & Marc Guggenheim & Keto Shimizu & Ubah Mohamed
Directed by Glen Winter & Gregory Smith

Barry: "An end."
Sara: "And a beginning. Thank you, Oliver."

Last time we left our seven, well one of them got replaced with Lex Luthor and the rest of them were slowly beginning to lose confidence in their mission. New boy, Ryan Choi somewhat went to town on bringing us all up to speed on that one while Lex continued to scheme and generally get on Kara's nerves while Barry was feeling a bit out of sorts to boot. On top of that, we did get a bit of a trip into the Monitor's past, met his wife, Xeen Novu (Melanie Merkosky) while also seeing the formation of the Anti Monitor. Between Lex trying to blackmail the Monitor for his own schemes, the Paragons also took some trips in past events, which made for seeing certain events in an interesting new way but then we got this moment to boot.

In the first three episodes of this event we got nods to Burton's Batman movies, a continuation of sorts to Superman Returns as well as characters from Smallville, Lucifer, the 90's Flash TV series, Titans and Birds of Prey and Burt Ward for Batman 66. All of that in itself was ambitious and shocking that they pulled it off. However the fourth segment went one better and had Ezra Miller's Flash from the DCEU pop up in a brief cameo where he got to interact with Barry. Seeing the two Flashs fanboy each other while trying to figure out what was going on was absolutely amusing and I'm kind of hoping now that Grant Gustin makes a cameo in Miller's Flashpoint influenced movie that's coming out in July 2022. It's a credit that the producers managed to keep that cameo concealed when pretty much every other one leaked and it's by far the best we've had in this five episode event.

As for Oliver Queen, well his days certainly seem to be done. It took a little way but the former Spectre, Jim Corrigan (Stephen Lobo) got through to him and he helped the Paragons to fan the flame while he lit the spark and battled the Anti-Monitor. In the end, things took a big change but before getting into that, there was no denying that Oliver made the ultimate sacrifice and while you can argue that it should've been Diggle and Laurel at his side during his final moments but the inclusion of Barry and Sara worked just as well for me. Of course whether or not Oliver is truly gone considering there are two episodes of Arrow left though is the other thing.

As for the changes, I think we all knew that worlds were going to merges so having Earths 1 and 38 become Earth Prime was hardly a shocker. More shocking was Lex winning a Nobel prize, being loved by everyone and also being Kara's boss at the DEO but I loved Kara's joy at being on the same Earth as everyone else even if it were tempered by Oliver's death and the Anti Monitor still being at large though. Of course as various characters banded together and we did get a rather quick defeat for the Anti-Monitor but not strictly a death as such. Either way, he's out of the Paragons hair for the time being.

As for the last few moments, things have certainly changed. Oliver's dead but no-one will be forgetting him any time soon and Barry setting up a Paragon council with himself, Sara, Kara, Clark, Kate, J'onn and Jefferson definitely means we should be psyching ourselves up for another crossover event at the end of the year. I've wanted Kara's world to merge with everyone's for a while now and while I was disappointed that we didn't see more Legends in their segment of this part, I do think it worked not having them as the show forges into a new status quo. Worlds may have died but many came back and at least two merged. The DC Universe certainly got a lot bigger now.

- Cameos: Marv Wolfman who wrote the original comic and co-wrote the fourth segment appeared as himself in the fifth part of this event.
- Other cameos included Stargirl and her gang from Earth 2, more Titans from Earth 9, Green Lanterns from Earth 12, Swamp Thing from Earth 19, Doom Patrol from Earth 21 and of course, Superman again from Earth 96.
- Superman and Lois have two boys instead of one and both Diggle and Lyla have Sara back again. Is Ryan also a single parent now too?
- Sargon the Sorcerer (Raúl Herrera) appeared and tried to use Beebo to distract the gang while Weather Witch also crossed paths with Supergirl and The Flash.
- I still can't believe they managed to get the DCEU into this event in some capacity.
- Chronology: Months passed since the events of the third part of this event.

Well, this was certainly a stunning event series and Crisis On Infinite Earths is definitely the pinnacle of what the Arrow universe has managed to achieve in the space of eight years and multiple shows. It's a credit to the CW they were able to pull this whole saga off the way they did and between the various nods, cameos, character moments and game changing events, things have certainly gotten a lot more exciting in this part of the DC Universe.

Rating: 9 out of 10